Monday, October 29, 2012

Samata - Part One

Even her shadow could pollute the water.  Samata woke everyday while the stars still sparkled over the open fields and the moon smiled over her mud hut.  She walked 30 minutes to a designated well and as she returned with arms lugging two buckets full of water, the sun usually winked at her and welcomed her to a new day.  Each day she balanced the buckets and put one determined foot in front of another, welcoming the freshness of the earth, the clarity of the sky, the golden smile of the sun while her low caste followed her limply in the shadows.

She worked in the fields tilling, toiling, sowing or harvesting shoulder to shoulder with her husband and his family.  The overseers and the landowners ordered with obscenities, pushed her frail body to its limits and insulted their low status every hour, but she trudged with her veiled head and back bent low.  Her eyes focused on the task, reminding her soul of her humanity and dreaming of a golden future.

Illiterate and scorned, she woke everyday with renewed determination.  Saving every paisa from the fieldwork or even skipping meals she insisted her children attend school.  Months evolved to years, her bent back stayed low in pain, her thick dark hair boasted white strands as her children graduated first from school, then college until securing respectable office jobs.

Landlords in the field continued to discriminate with constant reminders of her low caste but she turned a deaf ear to them.  Her simple life continued until one day, her daughter ran into the hut with tear streaked red cheeks, bruises on her body and tears in her sari.


To be continued….

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